Subtitled on front board The Lyre and Sword. The life of Theodor Korner, noted German poet and soldier. 401pp., 16pp. ads. Maroon cloth decorated with gold and black rules, gold lettering, gold lyre and sword on front board encircled with laurel wreath. Slight wear to edges, but a handsome copy with no inscriptions.


born Sept. 23, 1791, Dresden, Saxony
died Aug. 26, 1813, Gadebusch, Mecklenburg
Carl Theodor Körner (September 23, 1791 – August 26, 1813) was a German poet and soldier.


Farewell to Life

(Written in the night of the 17th and 18th of June, as I lay, severely wounded and helpless in a wood, expecting to die.)

"My deep wound burns;—my pale lips quake in death,—
I feel my fainting heart resign its strife,
And reaching now the limit of my life,
Lord, to thy will I yield my parting breath!

Yet many a dream hath charm'd my youthful eye;
And must life's fairy visions all depart;
Oh surely no! for all that fired my heart
To rapture here, shall live with me on high.

And that fair form that won my earliest vow,
That my young spirit prized all else above,
And now adored as freedom, now as love,
Stands in seraphic guise, before me now.

And as my fading senses fade away,
It beckons me, on high, to realms of endless day!"